Brooklyn Man Sentenced to up to 12 Years in Prison for Stealing Nearly $16 Million in Fraudulent Cryptocurrency Scheme

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, September 23, 2026

Brooklyn Man Sentenced to up to 12 Years in Prison for Stealing Nearly
$16 Million in Fraudulent Cryptocurrency Scheme

Scammed Approximately 100 Victims Throughout the US;
Convinced Users to Transfer Funds, Claiming Accounts were Hacked

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that an indictment brought by his Virtual Currency Unit has resulted in the guilty plea and sentencing of a Brooklyn man in connection with a phishing and social engineering scheme that stole nearly $16 million from about 100 users of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. The defendant - who used the handle @lolimfeelingevil when bragging online - contacted users purporting to be a Coinbase representative, claimed that their assets were at risk from a hacker and convinced them to transfer their money to a new cryptocurrency wallet. He then emptied out those accounts and laundered the assets by sending them to online swapping and mixing services as well as cryptocurrency gambling entities.

District Attorney Gonzalez said, "Today's sentencing holds the defendant accountable for a brazen, long-running social engineering scam that amounted to a digital robbery of nearly 100 victims. Our Virtual Currency Unit painstakingly pieced together the digital proof that identified the defendant behind this sophisticated scheme, followed the money that he stole and compiled iron-clad evidence against him. This case should put crypto scammers on notice: we will follow the digital trail wherever it leads and aggressively pursue those responsible."

The District Attorney identified the defendant as Ronald Spektor, 23, of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. He was sentenced today by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun to four to 12 years in prison. The defendant pleaded guilty to the entire 31-count indictment, including first-degree money laundering, first-degree grand larceny, first-degree criminal possession of stolen property and related charges on September 2, 2026 in exchange for the promised sentence over the objection of the District Attorney's office, which sought a sentence of seven to 21 years in prison.

The defendant was also ordered to forfeit cash, cryptocurrency and personal property with an estimated value of more than half a million dollars and make restitution of almost $16 million.

The District Attorney said Coinbase is an American cryptocurrency exchange that allows its users to buy, sell, and store digital assets. Coinbase users are popular targets for phishing scams, which are social engineering cyberattacks where a bad actor impersonates a trusted entity, like a bank or a well-known company, to trick customers into revealing sensitive information, such as passwords, account numbers, or other personal details. These scams are typically conducted through deceptive emails, text messages, phone calls, or malicious websites that mimic legitimate ones.

Over the course of a year, the DA's Virtual Currency Unit investigated a Coinbase phishing scheme that resulted in approximate loss of $15,944,000 from about 100 U.S.-based users. Victims confirmed that a purported Coinbase representative contacted them and informed them that their assets were at risk from a hacker and needed to be moved to a new wallet. The users, believing they were communicating with a real Coinbase representative, unwittingly moved their crypto assets to a wallet that they were led to believe was under their sole control, but was actually accessible by the defendant.

The investigation further revealed that the stolen assets were then laundered by swapping them multiple times through different crypto exchanges until they were eventually consolidated at "cash-out points" where they could be converted to other types of cryptocurrencies, wagered in bets, converted to cash, and used to purchase gift cards or digital assets. Large portions of the stolen assets in this case were sent to gambling services and various online storefronts.

The defendant, who lived with his father in Brooklyn, was responsible for the scheme, according to the evidence, based on transaction records, blockchain analyses, digital forensic and evidence recovered from multiple search warrants. The defendant's own home IP address was linked to multiple wallets that cryptocurrency was stolen from. The investigation also revealed that he used online forums to recruit others to work for him as social engineers (e.g. perpetuating what might look like a hacking attempt) and to brag about his criminal exploits.

Furthermore, the investigation revealed that Spektor used the handle @lolimfeelingevil on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, where he ran a channel called "Blockchain enemies" in which he openly bragged about his heists. He also used encrypted apps like Discord. Investigators recovered messages that show he wrote, using slang terms, that he lost six million dollars of cryptocurrency by gambling and implied that he has made millions of dollars' worth of cryptocurrency through scamming.

In addition, text messages recovered from his phone show that after becoming the subject of online allegations of fraud, he disposed of a cryptocurrency hardware wallet and purchased a new one.

Victims came from all walks of life, and their locations spanned the entire country. Some lost $1 million or more.

The District Attorney offered the following tips to avoid falling victim to phishing scams:

• Coinbase and most other companies will never call customers or ask to transfer crypto to a "safe wallet"
• Don't trust caller ID, sender names or lookalike domains that can be spoofed.
• Slow down. Scammers rely on urgency and pressure. Verify independently, consult with others, don't move money in a rush.

The civil forfeiture case against the defendant was handled by Senior Assistant District Attorney Joel Greenwald under the supervision of Asset Forfeiture and Crimes Against Revenue Deputy Bureau Chief Diana Villanueva.

The case was investigated by Assistant District Attorney Alona Katz, Chief of the District Attorney's Virtual Currency Unit with the assistance of ADA Kevin Zhen of the Frauds Bureau, Senior Virtual Currency Analyst Sam Weaver and Paul Stenzel, as well as analysts Jayden Kuprel, Chris Vellios, and Paralegal Claire Fagan, of the Virtual Currency Unit. Detective Investigators from the KCDA Detective Bureau and members of the Digital Evidence Lab Unit under the supervision of Chief Jingu Chong also assisted in the investigation.

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